


Flames

by Shadow_of_Quill



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: A Tale of Two Stans AU, Alternate Universe - Firebenders, Character death is no one people care about, Gen, promise!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23813692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadow_of_Quill/pseuds/Shadow_of_Quill
Summary: Ficlets set in a world where both of the Stan twins are firebenders. Some things are similar, but the changes soon add up...((I already wrote one of these, what ate it?))
Relationships: Ford Pines & Stan Pines
Comments: 22
Kudos: 88





	1. Sea Flames

**Author's Note:**

> This AU started for Stanuary, was continued for Forduary, and then I decided to keep going as long as I have inspiration.
> 
> Firebending is an idea ~~stolen~~ borrowed from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Unlike an "ATLA is the distant past" AU, bending is the only thing borrowed. Some of the differences: Bending is not connected to specific countries (no Fire Nation, Earth Kingdoms, etc.); there is no avatar; healing is possible for all elements, but comes easiest to water- and airbenders.

No one knows which of them bends fire first. Their mother laughs that they're twins, of course they must have done it together, and they haven't yet been forced to share so much that sharing grates on them.

Neither of their parents are benders. But their mother teaches them meditation, and some basics learned from a relative who may or may not exist ("Oh, fire's in our blood, boys!"), and Ford manages to dig out some books in the library. Mostly, though, they learn from experimenting and playing on the beach named for how many firebenders have learned on it.

Both of them have skills that aren't described in the texts they can get their hands on. The first time Ford sparks seed-lightning they both shout with shock, Lee falling over himself to tell Ford how cool it is. Lee never manages the analytical decisiveness required to generate lightning, but he swiftly learns to redirect it in ways a non-bender couldn't imagine.

That skill isn't as impressive as Lee's blue flames, though. He'll call them up when Ford is at his worst (I'm just a freak, Lee!) and shape them into moving images - the two of them hidden safely somewhere, Lee's cupped hands full of an ocean of blue fire as he tells his twin about the adventures they'll have someday.

When they're eleven, Ford finds a book that describes their special abilities.

Stanley will spend the rest of his life wishing he'd burned it before Stanford could read it.

"Lightning benders are the rare few with the drive and personality to change the world!" Ford reads, eyes sparkling.

Stanley bumps his shoulder. "Wow, look at you, Mr. World-changer!" he grins.

Ford laughs, scrambling to keep hold of the book. "Hey, you're here too! Blue flames are -" His smile vanishes. 

"What?" _Blue flames are a sign you're sick. Blue flames mean you're dying._

"Blue flames," Stanford reads in a wavering voice, "are a mark of dangerous sociopathy and their wielders cannot be trusted."

The twins stare at each other in silence until Stanley has to ask. "What's sociopathy?"

*

Things change after that. Stanley's lies aren't funny, or useful - they're a sign he's evil. Stanley's flames aren't pretty, or comforting - they're a sign he's evil. And yet Stanley can't _stop_ \- can't stop lying, can't stop calling his flames, can't stop being evil.

Stanford used to like having Stanley's blue flames run over the bruises from boxing and bullies. He said it made them hurt less, said his scientific studies proved it helped them heal faster. 

Stanley waits until his brother's asleep, then sneaks his blue flames up the posts of their bunk beds to heal the pains Stanford doesn't bring to him any more. 

Stanford looks at him suspiciously. "Are you using that fire on me?"

"No!" Stanley lies.

Their mother is worried by the new distance between them, but their father approves of it. They might both be firebenders, but Stanford is the one who's going places. Stanley's the one who couldn't even get a job scraping barnacles off the taffy stand for fear he'd set it on fire.

Stanford listens to their father, and reads more books (though he stops reading them out to Stanley), and watches Stanley from the corners of his eyes.

Stanley scrambles to hold onto his relationship with his twin.

He fails.

*

It's their last science fair before graduation, and Stanford wants to do something truly impressive. Stanley tries to poke and prod him into one more evening together before he dives into his nerdery, something whispering in the back of his mind that it might be his last chance to hang out with his brother - but Stanford's suspicions flare up and suddenly he's accusing Stanley of trying to sabotage him, to make him put the science fair off and off till it's too late for him to win it. The nonsensical accusations spark Stanley's own temper, and they're shouting at each other in the living room when Stanford sees Stanley's fists and gasps, backing away - which is when their parents walk in.

All of his family see Stanley's flames burn bright hot blue, see Stanford afraid of them.

"You're no son of mine," Filbrick Pines sneers as he throws Stanley out of the only home he's ever known. Stanley stands there, not even a duffle bag of possessions to call his own, and tries to understand what has happened.

*

The next day, still in shock, he goes to his ma - _tell me it'll be okay, tell me I imagined it, tell me it was just a bad dream._

His ma flinches, looks at him like she's scared (like Stanford looked at him). "Baby, your brother says - he says you _used_ that fire on him," and Stanley can't think to lie because _of course_ he did, Stanford's the one who said it helped! - but his ma looks more scared, looks _hurt,_ and she's backing away and gone before Stanley can figure out how to explain.

Stanley stares after her and breathes out smoke as he puts it together. Stanford told their ma that Stanley hurt him, and Stanley may be a liar but Stanford's outdone him in that just like everything else.

The fury and pain burn in his chest, and Stanley's going to live just to spite the family who've thrown him away.

*

(He goes to Glass Shard beach, finds two pieces of his twin's lightning glass, almost breaks from knowing he's never going to feel that familiar chi again. He melts sand and wraps the fulgerite in sea-shaped glass flames.

No photographs, no phonecalls. Just this one reminder that he had a family before he ruined everything.

He leaves the second piece. It's stupid to think that Stanford might want a reminder of him. It's stupid to _want_ him to have one.

Stanley's always been the stupid twin.)

*

His flames change after that, sinking down into the golds and reds that everyone says they always should have been. Stanley thinks he might hate them for only lying _now,_ when it's too late to matter. It's sick, _he's_ sick, because the _blue_ flames are the ones that prove he's a sociopath but these flames _feel_ colder, more dangerous.

But colder and dangerous are what he's meant to be, so he grits his teeth and learns to use them. They're still hot enough to scare away any opponents, and that's all he needs from them.

And then it isn't, his opponents aren't scared (aren't scared _enough)_ , and Stanley's terrified by how he doesn't know what's happened - are they still chasing him? are they going to hunt him down? _(did he just kill someone?)_

He never knows, never finds out. Stanley Pines flees New Jersey in a stolen car with a fake ID, and tells himself he'll feel warmer soon enough.

(He's a sociopath. He's _supposed_ to lie.) (Just ask his brother.)

*

He ditches the car in the next city - it's not worth keeping hold of. He picks pockets and shoplifts and finds a little stony hole under a bridge that he can heat up enough to not freeze all night, and he doesn't ask himself what the point of any of it is. It doesn't take long for bars to become his new favourite places - he drinks, he hustles at pool, he fights, and sometimes everything in his head gets too drowned out by _now_ to hurt him.

He's almost old enough to be legal when Jimmy Snakes finds him and drags him into his gang - "Hey, firebenders need someone to be loyal to, right? Might as well be us." 

Might as well be them, he agrees silently, and burns his way through a bank vault to get money for a ride of his own.

*

His flames keep feeling colder and that pain in his chest keeps getting worse and the rest of the gang are getting worried no matter how many times he swears not to let them down. He's too dizzy to ride so they leave him to babysit a sick kid who insists he's older than he looks (like any of them cares) who joined before Stan.

He's dizzy and he's half-asleep and the kid is hacking like he's gonna bring a lung up, and something in Stan's stupid brain tells him Ford's gotten another cold.

"Fuck's sake, come over here," he grumbles, and grabs an arm to pin Ford in place because the nerd always freaks that Pap's gonna see him being taken care of. His other hand presses against his back, palm warmed, and starts to rub in slow circles while Stan calls up his special flames.

They don't come as easy as they should, and Ford's wriggling like he's forgotten every other time Stan's done this for him, but Stan's pretty good at using stubbornness to make up for the patience he don't got and it's never gonna be hard to be gentle with his brother. "Easy, bro," he soothes, sighing in relief as he feels the heat in his hand slip into the blue fire he needs it to be. Ford jumps and squeaks, and Stan snickers at him because seriously, brainiac? You're gonna whine about not being able to observe _again?_

His snickering dies off as he feels how deep this cold has its hooks in his bro's lungs. "Yeesh, how'd you hide this one?" he mutters. Ford wheezes like he's trying to answer, and Stan rolls half-closed eyes as he grumbles, "Lemme fix your breathing up before you try'n talk my ear off, 'kay?"

It's peaceful for a while, his brother relaxing against Stan as he burns away the illness in his lungs. He grins for a moment at the familiar shift as the final roots die away, and shifts his hold. "Think that's done it," he warns Ford, and gives him a firm slap on the back.

The blow sends him half-coughing, half-retching as all the gunk choking up his lungs comes out. Stan grins proudly even as he keels over sideways, finally giving in to the black spots filling his vision.

He'll wake up to: the reminder that the boy he just healed isn't Ford; the discovery that the rest of the gang found them in the middle of Stan's efforts; and the warmth of his blue flames in his chest like they'd never been missing.

*

("He kept calling me 'bro'!" 

"Makes sense. Healers need family, right?"

"Thought it's _Water_ that need family."

"And which is the only element that heals?")

*

The way the gang treat him changes after that, and they're so fucking obvious but he lets it work anyway. _Hey bro, good to see you brother, how's things bro? We're family, we're home_ , and he knows they're just using him but they think he's worth using (which is more than his blood family did).

And then someone talks, word gets round, someone gets jealous - how come he's getting special treatment, he has to come help this friend-of-a-friend, if he's going to eat this much he should be doing more than sitting on his ass.

Doesn't he want to come riding again?

Stanley's always been (the) stupid (twin).

Air may need freedom but Stanley needs the sunlight, seriously guys the windows _aren't_ enough, it's not like he's gonna run!

He's out in a back alley when the airbending midwife demands in broken English for anyone with healing hands to come help her, and later he'll be so embarrassed he fell for such an obvious trap, but in the moment he's distracted by the mother-to-be's helpless cries. The midwife watches him like a hawk, both of them working together to save two lives, and then she rubs her hand over his shoulder and says, "Bueno, chico," and Stanley's falling asleep before he can tell that she's forcing it on him.

He never knows why she does it.

He never knows whether the child he helped deliver was a boy or a girl.

He never even knows whether the mother and child both survived.

*

Stanley wakes with stone cuffs wrapped around his ankles and wrists and a cold-eyed earthbender smiling at him.

"Show me your flamas marina."

Stanley spits in his face.

He doesn't get worried till the man smiles. "Gringo, many people have tried to defy Rico. You are not special enough to be the one who succeeds." Stanley's cuffs drag him away. "Perhaps some time in the pits may turn you sweeter, ey?"

*

Bending matches are the human version of dog-fighting or cockpits - bloodsport with participants who are only treated as well as they do in their fights.

Stanley fits right in. Rico wouldn't mind that - Stanley's making him a fair bit of cash, as far as he can tell - but Stanley doesn't forget what he learned in the gang. Stanley picks locks and slips into other fighters' cells, and Rico is furious that Stanley will waste his so-special 'flamas marina' on the other worthless trash but never lets Rico see a spark of it, never uses it at Rico's command.

Stanley _needs_ to heal - but he's the one who chooses who. Not Rico.

Eventually, Rico gets tired of that.

*

Needles are driven into Stanley to block his chi, and he's trapped in a cartrunk and left to die.

Needles are easily dislodged by the twisting needed to bite away the plastic ties on his wrists, the plastic and fabric inside the car, and Stanley's been gnawing on the metal for he never knows how long before he realises he has enough chi flowing to melt a hole in the lock.

*

Stanley keeps the car he was left to die in. It's not a bad car, all things considered.

*

Stanley survives (despite not being sure he wants to). He survives long enough to hear whispers and rumours about "sea flames", and laughs himself sick at the thought of how eager to learn about them Stanford would be.

He even survives the day he learns that sociopaths' flames are azure, while his own healing flames have always been bright turquoise.

*

This is the first time Stanley's seen his twin in almost a decade.

He never, ever wanted to see this.

Rico grins too wide and laughs too long, holding a stone chain leading to a collar around Stanford's neck. "Heeeey, knucklehead! Do you want to show me those pretty sea-flames of yours _now?_ I think I've finally got hold of someone you'll _want_ to use them on!"

Stanley tries to stall for time while his brain throws up increasingly desperate plans for his twin to escape. He doesn't understand any of this. He doesn't understand why Rico's here so blatantly, when Rico's never done his own dirty work. He doesn't understand why Rico's acting this erratic, this wild. 

Here's the thing he doesn't understand most. Rico's eyes have always been dark earthbender green. Why is it that now, as he's cackling in triumph, 

Stanley could swear they're a toxic shade of yellow?


	2. Glass Flames

No one knows which of them bends fire first. Their mother laughs that they're twins, of course they must have done it together, and Ford takes her words literally - bending in unison comes easily to them both, easier at first than bending alone, so of course their first bending must have been shared. (Much later, after years of his father spitting poison in his ears, Stanford will convince himself that _he_ didn't need _Stanley_ for it, that Stanley somehow leached away Stanford's first flames to make it _look_ as though they were shared.) (It is not the worst falsehood that Ford will convince himself of.)

Ford hunts for books describing firebending - they should have living teachers, but none of their family are benders (none that they know and speak to, at least, though their mother teaches them both candleflame meditation, and surely she must have learned it from someone?), and their father will not pay out good money for them to learn something that he sneers is supposed to come naturally. (Ford reads that the first benders were taught by elemental spirits, but he will never find any signs that such beings are real, despite spending half his life seeking them.) Lee has no patience for reading when he could be _doing_ , but they work together well enough with Ford reading out descriptions of the moves and Lee attempting them. Once Lee achieves something cool or interesting he drags Ford away from his book and makes him copy it till they both know the move, and then Ford will return to his book and they will start again.

Lee favours punches, fists raised in poses that owe more to boxing matches seen on television than images copied from ancient scrolls. Ford is equally (un)willing to kick _or_ punch, taking the old saying that firebending comes from the breath more seriously than Lee thinks it deserves.

Watching them separately, a person might not believe they learned together - but seen side by side, their very different styles are obviously two halves of a whole.

*

Ford sits in determined focus, feeling for his sense of his own chi and attempting to move it without moving his arms or legs or so much as a finger. His chi flows, and separates, and -

"COOL!" Lee shouts, scrambling closer as they both stare in shock at the sparks-that-are- _not_ -flames as they wink out. Ford turns his stare to Lee, eyes wide with shock that is only delighted instead of overwhelmed because his twin is here believing so very clearly that this is a good thing.

"I think that was _lightning,_ " he whispers, and Lee is even more impressed with him.

(Much later, Ford will be around other firebenders, who mutter amongst themselves that lightningbending is a sign of being cold, being heartless - but none of the whispers will ever go deep enough to drown out that awed shout of "COOL!")

*

Lee never learns lightningbending.

Stanford tells himself, later, that it's because Stanley is too undisciplined.

*

Lee's flames are a bright turquoise, and Ford is as fascinated by them as Lee is by Ford's lightning. He reaches over, prods them curiously, and laughs as they tickle slightly, sun-warm and welcoming. "They're amazing," he breathes, and Lee blushes, looks away, tries to hide how much it means that Ford is impressed. (Ford doesn't let himself remember this, afterwards; he tells himself that Stanley was laughing at how easily fooled he was, because somehow that hurts less than truly remembering his brother being shy and hopeful that he had achieved something worth praising.)

Lee makes shapes with his flames, moving illustrations for the tall tales he invents whenever Ford needs to hear them. Lee's flames mean comfort and safety to Ford, even more than Ford's own do, because Lee's flames are companionship and acceptance and everything he needs that no one else in this town will give him. They're so comforting that Ford keeps reaching to touch them, never fearing he might be burned because how could he be burned by his twin's flames when they always firebend together?

Ford couldn't say when he first suspects that Lee's flames are more than comforting. He makes careful notes in a little book, written in code so their father won't scold them for the experiments he's recording (the potential recklessness means nothing, but their father would be infuriated by the caring implied, the willingness to - the _desire_ to - look after each other which their father will never see as anything but weakness). 

His records prove his theory correct: Lee's flames are _healing_ flames. Bruises, scrapes, cuts, every injury that comes from being an active boy with easy access to a beach (and being a frequent victim of bullies who are enabled, if not actively _encouraged_ , by the adults around them) heals faster and easier under his brother's blue flames.

It makes perfect sense to him, when they are young: Lee wants more than anything to protect and care for Ford, so of course these flames made purely of his chi heal Ford.

(Later, he will feel humiliated (feel _sick_ ) to have been so wrong.) (Later still, he will feel worse that he never thought to question the discrepancies between what he read and what he experienced - never measured what he was _told_ against what he _knew_ , never saw how the two were too different to be anything but two separate things.)

*

When Ford is eleven, he finds a book that describes his ability to create seed-lightning. (It will only be decades later that he will understand that his brother's abilities - those healing flames, coloured a blue that's almost green - were never mentioned in that book.) The book tells Ford that he is special, is _amazing_ , and so Ford believes it wholeheartedly. (It is a pattern of thought that comes close to ruining him, before the end. 

In other worlds, it does.)

He seeks out what the book has to say about Lee's flames eagerly, looking to make his brother feel as special as he does.

What he finds ( _Blue flames are a mark of dangerous sociopathy_ ) destroys them, instead.

*

Sociopaths are dangerous, are cruel, are _evil_. Ford watches Stanley, tries to see the signs that he must have missed for all their lives, and grows more and more afraid the longer he goes without seeing them - how can Lee fake caring so easily, so constantly? (If he _can't_ , if the book is _wrong_ , what does that mean for what it says about Ford's own lightningbending?)

His bruises and scratches and all his minor injuries keep healing faster than he thought was natural. "Are you using that fire on me?" he asks, and Stanley says "No!"

If Stanley is lying then everything becomes tangled, because lying is a sign of sociopathy but there is no reason for Stanley to heal him and not claim responsibility unless he truly cares, and if he's a sociopath then he can't care, but if he isn't why would he lie so much, and... And if Stanley is telling the truth, just this once, then Ford was mistaken and Stanley's flames have nothing to do with healing.

(Ford decides, under his conscious thoughts, on a level of his mind that he is completely oblivious to, that he could accept being wrong about Stanley's flames being healing if it means that the book telling him _he_ is so special (instead of just being a freak) is right.) (It may not be fair to his twin, but having someone _other_ than his family tell him he is special, is different in a good way, is too rare to lose; even if the person telling him so (through words written in a book) died long before he was born.)

*

It's their last science fair before graduation, and Ford feels half-crazy from trying to see his brother for what his flames prove him to be, and Stanley clings and prods and pokes until Ford finds himself shouting accusations that seem half-nonsense even to himself - and then Stanley's fists flare blue, and Ford backs away in fear because _has he pushed too far? Is Stanley finally going to prove himself a dangerous sociopath just because Ford found something more important than paying attention to him?_

He didn't realise their parents were there. He didn't realise what they'd make of what they saw.

Stanford stands in his room, alone, staring at all the things in it that are not his, and tries to understand what has just happened.

*

"I don't understand," his mother says, and neither does Stanford. "You looked so scared, baby," she says, and of course he was because everything about that scene was wrong and he can't understand why. "Did - did he ever... _use_ those flames on you?" and Stanford doesn't understand what she's asked him, doesn't understand what he's saying when he nods yes with the memory of warmth and healing spreading through his veins.

Stanford doesn't understand.

(Neither does she.)

*

Ford goes to the beach they both practised on. (He has no idea what he's looking for.)

Seeing the little glass sculpture of waves around fulgerite ( _Ford's_ fulgerite) feels like an electric shock, and Ford has no idea why. He doesn't know why he snatches it up, holds it close as if it's precious (as if someone might try to take it from him).

...The glass flames feel comforting, warm like sunlight.

Ford keeps those flames in reach - in hidden pockets, in his hands, always where he can touch them, always where he knows they're safe - for years.

*

Over the next few weeks (months, years) Stanford tries to make sense of what's happened. Slowly, he pieces things together.

If Stanley was a parasite, was using Stanford, _smothering_ him, then their father being willing to throw Stanley out makes sense.

If Stanley was dangerous, if there were some warning signs that Stanford had missed but their mother had seen and tried to overlook, then her immediately assuming that Stanley would hurt Ford with his flames makes sense.

If those blue flames really _were_ such a bad sign, then the book saying they mark Stanley as a sociopath makes sense.

(Ford clings to the glass flames, feeling the frozen echoes of his twin's chi. If these flames feel so comforting, then maybe (his brother isn't a sociopath), maybe (the healing and caring weren't false, weren't lies), maybe there's a reason for it (he misses Stanley, he _misses_ Stanley)... 

maybe it doesn't make sense.)

*

Ford's bruises don't heal so easily, without his brother's presence (without his brother's _flames_ ).

No one else notices.

*

The last Ford hears about his brother before he leaves New Jersey to go to the only college that would take his late application (late because he almost didn't think to apply at all, because no one mentioned scholarships until so late into his school year) is a rumour that he's killed someone. "He burned them to death!" "I heard he was laughing while he did it!"

Ford is grateful to go to Backupsmore, even though the best it boasts of is 'mostly bug-free dorms'. Away from the rumours, away from the sneers. (Away from the stupid urge to defend his brother when he's the one who found out Stanley is a sociopath in the first place, away from the nightmares of his twin's body lying unclaimed in a morgue because his father refused to acknowledge him even in death.) There are fewer people there than he hoped who see more to him than his six fingers and lightningbending, but more than he feared.

One of those people is his roommate, Fiddleford, with eyes of waterbender blue but no bending skill at all. He appreciates that Ford doesn't look down on him for not being a bender, Ford appreciates that he doesn't look down on Ford for his six fingers, and they each appreciate the other's intelligence. (It doesn't occur to Ford that they could become friends, and Fiddleford is too polite to push his company on someone who seems uninterested.)

Ford learns of a game called Dungeons and Dungeons and More Dungeons, and finds people to play it with. It's the most socialising he does during his time at Backupsmore, a few hours each week spent feeling like he's part of a group. (He doesn't understand how standoffish he seems outside those games, doesn't realise that the group he plays with want him to sometimes be the one to invite them to sit nearby or offer snacks instead of his expecting them to always make any and all effort.) (How would he? His only socialisation before this was Stanley, who would make any effort if it would make his twin more inclined to spend time with him.) He fills the rest of his time with studying, driven to earn his place, earn the scholarship he was given, and if he gives less than his all then he _doesn't_ deserve it, does he?

Every time he feels too alone, he clings to the glass flames. Every time he remembers who left them for him, he pretends he isn't missing Stanley. ...The growing disconnect from his own emotions does nothing to help him build friendships, but it helps him pretend he doesn't need them, and he tells himself that's almost as good.

In time, he convinces himself it's better.

(But despite what he tells himself, he never stops clinging to the reminder of his twin.)

*

Ford has multiple PhDs. Ford has a grant. Ford has evidence telling him that the small town of Gravity Falls is an epicentre for the anomalies he's so eager to study.

(Ford has no contact with his almost-friends from Backupsmore, no intention of making friends in this town that he has come to live in, and no idea that he wants any of these things. He _would_ have no contact with his family, but his mother puts in the effort that he still doesn't recognise he should, telephone calls and occasional letters and frequent suggestions of visits that never happen.

And then his mother is ill and the calls stop happening, the letters stop coming, and Ford never quite notices that he's lost contact with his family.) (He clings to the glass flames so often and for so long their shape becomes imprinted on his hand.) (He never notices either fact, let alone connects them.)

*

Ford knows there's an answer here (there _has_ to be an answer) but he can't find it, and if he can't find the answer he isn't good enough, isn't clever enough, he doesn't deserve - doesn't deserve - (anything, everything, he has no idea what it _is_ he needs to earn, he only knows that if his mind isn't enough to answer this riddle he's found then he _hasn't_ earned it, might never, and that thought, that fear, drives him further than anyone should go.)

The cave painting feels like a beacon in the dark. (Later, he'll decide it's a will-o-the-wisp, leading him astray from firm land to drown in the swamp for its own amusement.) He summons Bill, he talks to Bill, and the loneliness he never recognised fades. (The glass flames sting his palm every time he talks to Bill. He tells himself - Bill tells him - that it's coincidence, but something in him takes it as a warning, is warier of Bill than he realises.)

"You should build an interdimensional portal!" Bill (orders) suggests, and Ford finds the idea fascinating, exciting. "You'll need my help, of course!" Bill says (threatens?), and Ford has an incongruous memory of working with Stanley to learn firebending (but would Ford be the one holding the book, or the one struggling to make sense of the instructions read out?). (Ford doesn't _want_ Bill's help. But he never admits it close enough to the surface of his mind for Bill to challenge him on it.) "Let's make a deal!" Bill says (demands), and he offers a hand full of blue flames (blue, not turquoise, not -), and Ford throws himself back so violently he throws himself out of the mindscape.

 _Blue flames are the sign of a sociopath_ , and oh, what if they were never talking about _human_ flames at all?

(What if Ford destroyed Stanley's life for no reason at all?)

*

Bill threatens and postures, but Ford is stubborn and knows better (he sacrificed his brotherhood with his own twin on a pyre of fear and paranoia, does Bill _really_ think a few months of companionship will be held higher?). It's not so difficult to find wards to block Bill's entrance to his house, not when he never quite made those changes Bill suggested, not when he never gave Bill the access he wanted. (Not when he never made a deal.) Ford clutches Stanley's glass flames to his chest, and breathes in the pattern of the candlelight meditation their mother taught them, and tells himself that he's safe. (He still doesn't recognise the loneliness he feels.)

But not all the things Bill told him were lies, and when Bill listed the people he had 'inspired' Ford didn't pay attention to how many different countries they were from, didn't see the warning for what it was. (Gravity Falls is not the only place where instructions on how to summon Bill can be found.)

Ford is dragged from his home on the instructions of an earthbender he has never seen before, who wraps a collar of stone around his throat. "So! And do _you_ have the pretty flamas marina of your brother?" the earthbender asks mockingly.

Ford never learned Spanish, but he can tell 'marina' is 'sea' or 'ocean'. 'Ocean flames'?

His mind goes to Stanley's bright turquoise flames, Stanley's _healing_ flames, and even with the number of air healers there are healing has always been associated with waterbending and waterbending always associated with the ocean...

(Those glass flames around his fulgerite could almost be glass _waves_ , couldn't they?)

There's a black hole forming inside Ford, too much pressure applied to the mass of all those memories that prove Stanley was never a sociopath, was never a threat, was never someone who should have been cast out of their home and their family (and oh, for a firebender hadn't Stanley always been so strangely devoted to his family instead of his honour?).

The earthbender's eyes gleam yellow. "Come along, little firebender," he taunts, as his pattern of speech changes to one Ford is horrified to recognise. "There's a family reunion to get to! Wouldn't wanna be late!"

The black hole compresses further, as Ford stares at this human-who-is-somehow-Bill and _knows_ who the reunion will be with, knows he has somehow condemned his brother to an even worse fate (surely, _surely_ there's a limit to how far he can ruin his twin's life without meaning to?).

The collar drags him forwards. The human-who-is-Bill grins.

Ford is terrified.

*

Ford doesn't know how he expected Stanley to look. But he didn't expect the deep, sickening terror in his eyes when he sees the human-who-is-Bill (Ford hasn't heard a name, hasn't been listening for one - whoever _used_ to own that body is irrelevant, now that Bill has settled in Ford is sure that the original owner will never be able to reclaim it).

Even after all this time, Ford's subconscious tells him that Stanley is fire, is comfort, is family and healing.

Stanley should never be so afraid.

"Heeeey, knucklehead!" _Don't you dare, how dare you, that nickname isn't yours to use_ "Do you want to show me those pretty sea-flames of yours _now?" Why would Bill care - is that the terms of whatever deal he made with this man_ \- "I think I've finally got hold of someone you'll _want_ to use them on!"

Stanley tries to charm and sweet-talk, stalling for time so blatantly even Ford can see it, and Bill laughs and pretends to humour him as he blames _Stanley_ for _Ford_ being here and Stanley _believes_ him -

and then there's a blade of stone impaling Ford's leg, and Stanley is screaming, _begging_ to be _allowed_ to do what the earthbender wants, and Bill's laughing so loud -

and the black hole in Ford's chest swallows all his fear and doubt and self-recrimination so there's nothing in him but pain and the sight of his twin's desperation to give up everything for his sake -

_(his chi flows, and separates, and)_

Bill's laughter cuts off with a sharp crack. The stone collar crumbles away from Ford's throat. (The stalagmite through his leg _doesn't_ crumble.)

Stanley pulls Ford away from the stone through his leg, away from the body lying on the floor, and _pours_ his blue flames (turquoise flames, _ocean_ flames) into the wound on Ford's leg. Ford is trembling, is shocked, is clinging to his brother almost as tightly as Stanley is clinging onto _him_.

"...What just happened?" Ford asks weakly. Bill can't have been stopped so easily. Stanley can't still care about him so much he'd give up everything for a chance to protect him. (Nothing makes sense.)

Stanley tenses, muscles solider than the stone of the collar had been. "Hey, I had to find some use for those old lessons about redirecting electricity someday, right?" Ford blinks slowly. Redirecting...?

His eyes land on the body of his captor. He realises, with a slow creeping horror, that he is looking at the corpse of a human - more, of a man who has died of electrocution.

Stanley never did learn how to lightningbend.

"The human body doesn't produce that much electricity, Stanley," he whispers.

He can feel Stanley cringe. "Do you think the cops are gonna know that?" he asks, and it's a genuine question, his twin brother who he hasn't seen in ten years, whose life he destroyed, is asking if he can successfully frame himself for -

("I heard he killed someone!" "I heard he was smiling when he did it!")

(Was Ford smiling when he killed Bill? Was he smiling when he killed this person who Bill was using?)

"I'm a murderer," Ford whispers, and the black hole in his chest implodes and takes his consciousness with it.

"Sixer? Sixer, stay with me!" calls a worried voice, and Ford knows as he sinks that he'll follow it out of the darkness.

Eventually.


	3. Speaking Flames

It's far from unusual for twins to create a private language. Stan and Ford use gestures as much as sound, chattering happily together without disturbing their father's peace. When they start firebending, it only makes sense to incorporate it - a quick rain of sparks means Stanford, a wavering (flowing) flame means Stanley. They learn to craft smoke; quick bursts of white or ominous dark clouds.

Given time, their language could have become something truly impressive - but their father notices that there is something here he doesn't understand, and his pride will not allow such a thing to go unchallenged in his own home.

Years and decades after having their private language forbidden and left to die away, Ford still reacts to waking from a nightmare by flicking a red-gold flame to the side. It means _Are you awake?_ It means _Will you comfort me?_

He tries not to hold it against Fiddleford that his roommate never wakes when he does it, never answers his request with a thin column of yellow that means _Yes,_ means _I'm here,_ means _comfort-safety-I've-got-your-back-bro._ He tries.

He isn't always successful. 

*

Stan adds more words and meanings to his private lexicon; a glowing handprint in the air is _I miss you_ (is _high six_ ), a curl of turquoise is _homesick_ or _sea_ , a quickly dispersing burst of smoke is _pickpocket_ or _trick_ or _con._

He tries not to think about the fact that Ford wouldn't recognise or understand any of them, the fact that this private language has gone from two speakers to one. He thinks, at his lower points, of trying to teach it to the rest of the biker gang - they couldn't _use_ it, but they could _understand_ , know what he's saying even if they can't reply.

He never does. It feels too much like a betrayal of the bond his brother and he shared.

*

Alone in his cabin, Ford mutters to the glass flames when he's especially sleep-deprived (especially _lonely_ ). He doesn't entirely remember where the words he uses came from, why the nonsense sounds have to be accompanied by gestures or specific flames. He doesn't notice when he creates new ones, a brief flare of red flame for _danger-I-got-away-from-safely_ , a sharp flash of white for _made-me-uncomfortable/scared_.

Bill tries to speak to him in that language. Once.

Ford doesn't let Bill speak to him for a month, forcing himself awake if his muse is in his dreams, drinking teas to give him dreamless sleep.

It's petty, and childish - but the glass flames Ford clings to are warm with approval, and why shouldn't Ford have the right to keep this one childish thing to himself?

*

Stan meditates in his cell, and makes sure not a flicker of the private language he shared with his brother escapes to be seen by Rico's pet firebenders.

Stan meditates in the driver's seat of the car he's decided to keep, and doesn't let a flicker of the private language show for any hunters Rico might have sent after him to see.

Stan meditates before he goes to face Rico again, with the scars from those blue-flamed psychopaths forming indelible handprints on his ribs and chest that he will never, never manage to heal, and his flames are a bright beacon demanding, _Are you safe? Are you safe? Are you safe?_

There's no answer. And then he's facing Rico, yellow-eyed Rico with Ford in a stone collar, and his question is answered in the worst way possible.

*

Ford is unconscious and Stan is _terrified_ , because there's only so much his sea-flames can heal (he has the proof of that in two smeared handprints that would have killed anyone who didn't have his healing and his resistance to fire) and Ford's sudden illness isn't part of that.

There are old legends and urban legends of firebenders whose element turns against them, firebenders who betray themselves and are punished by their own inner fire, and Stan is terrified. Stan is terrified because what is Ford killing Rico if not a betrayal of Ford's morality, and if anyone would bring to truth a legend like this it _would_ be his idealistic knucklehead of a twin.

Stan's poured too much of his strength into healing Ford already, he can't spare any more without falling unconscious _himself_ and that's too great a risk when he doesn't know how many of Rico's men might come in at any moment to find their boss dead at a firebender's ( _lightningbender's_ ) hands. Stan can't heal him, can't wake him, and desperation pushes his final loose chi into a quick burst of sparks. _Stanford!_

Once, twice, and Ford's eyes are opening, Ford is lifting one hand to show the wavering flame that means _Stanley_.

Stan hauls his brother to his feet, and the two of them stagger back to the car with the never-fixed trunk. Stan drives them to a motel, Ford digs out enough money to pay for a room.

As they slump on the twin beds, Ford flicks a red-gold flame to the side. Stan answers with a thin column of yellow, then sweeps his hand out to leave a flat cloud of black smoke. _Let's sleep_.

After more than a decade, the silent conversation heals something Ford didn't recognise was broken, something Stan didn't think would ever recover. The relief leaves them both asleep before they can speak a word.

Or notice that Ford hasn't.


	4. Meditative Flames

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sticking with this theme to the chapter titles till the end.

All firebenders need to meditate. Their inner fire, flames sparked from and fuelled by their chi, draws power from their emotions; without time spent to clear their minds, it is far too easy for firebenders to lose sight of what they are doing and who might be hurt by it.

Firebenders are supposed to meditate using outside fire; a candle, a lantern. The cold fire of electricity is too foreign for most, too dangerous for any with the surges and dips the firebender's emotions would cause. The inner fire should only be used as a last resort, a stop-gap when there are no better options available. Likewise, meditations can be shared, but it is healthier for firebenders to at least have the option to meditate alone.

Of course, no one tells the twins this.

Ford likes the recursivity of meditating using his own flames; using his flames for the meditation to control his flames so he can use his flames. It makes his flames flow easier, spiralling to a calm that comes easiest through this path. (He doesn't see that instead of putting his choices and actions in larger context, he is only reaffirming them - instead of reminding himself of other paths, he makes the one he first chooses shine clearer.) Lee's preference is more practical; he dislikes the thought of being reliant on anything but his own self. (Their father's grumbles about having to waste candles ring in his ears long after he has been thrown out, though he'll never admit to anyone (including himself) that he pays any attention to them.)

Their first meditation is sat before a candle their mother lights (a single candle between the two of them; no one in that room will ever quite have the context to know how badly served by this the twins are). She tells them to kneel, backs straight, palms flat. Kneel, and find the rhythm, and breathe. Kneel watching the flame, and breathe to its rhythm.

That first meditation is more frustrating than calming, but they will always look back on it fondly - warmth and comfort and family, a brief span of time to be shared between them.

By their tenth year, they have it to ironclad habit, kneeling facing each other, fingers interlocked, green-tinged flames dancing between them. (Each of them so used to their chi having to bend and surge with the other's hurts and problems as well as their own, and it's not so surprising that everyone treats them as two halves of one whole when their own meditation enforces it.)

*

Meditating together comes less easily after Ford finds the book, reads it, believes what (he thinks) is written in it. Ford's avoidance of Stan's flames extends to flinching every time they are knelt facing each other, and where Stan would try to push through and ignore the discomfort Ford instead starts meditating alone, so Stan must do the same or go without meditating at all - and for firebenders, meditation is far more necessity than luxury.

It hurts to meditate alone when all his life he's shared it.

Stan thinks it must not hurt Ford, or he wouldn't choose to do it. Ford tells himself Stan must be exaggerating how much it hurts him, because aren't sociopaths supposed to feel less than normal people? He's just trying to play on how much it hurts Ford, he _must_ be.

They do not share another meditation for years, and then Stan is banished and disowned and their chances to share are gone.

*

There are no other firebenders in Jimmy's gang. Stan tells himself the mocking tone when they mutter to each other about his 'need to _commune_ with his element' is friendly teasing, nothing more. (He isn't entirely wrong, even - enough of them have rumours and stories to work from to know that the time alone staring into a flame _is_ something he needs, even if none of them can truly understand _why.)_

After his healing flames reawaken, Stan finds meditating less of a chore.

He tells himself it's lonely - and it is - but he doesn't admit how good it feels to deal with his own problems immediately, instead of pushing them aside as less important than his twin's.

Green flames dance above his hands, healing turquoise mixed with gold, and now that he is entirely away from any hope of reconciliation with his brother Stan slowly grows used to not putting his emotional needs in second place. (Before, it was always in the back of his mind, that poisonous hope that Ford might accept him back and so he must retain the patterns of their shared meditation.)

Stan develops a habit of reaching for the glass flames in his pocket after his meditation, touching them to feel Ford's chi while his mind is at its clearest.

(He doesn't let himself compare it to Ford's reaching for Stan's chi in their shared meditations, how that only happened after Ford's problems had been burned through.)

*

The other firebenders at Backupsmore look down on Stanford for meditating using his inner fire. None of them explain _why_ (and it never occurs to Ford that some of them might if he only _asked),_ and Ford has never been the best at hearing things which are not clearly explained to him, so he tells himself it is just another prejudice, one more thing for them to use as a mark of his 'difference' from them.

(Fiddleford has no firebenders amongst his family or friends to tell him what Ford needs to know, and so he assumes his roommate must be old enough to know his own needs best. Ford's meditation leaves him steadier, less prone to flareups, and what else could he need from it?)

Ford tries, more as an experiment than anything serious, to meditate using the sparks of electricity he can produce.

(For a moment of brief, horrifying clarity, he sees what happened to his twin with no emotions shadowing it, sees his brother thrown out for nothing more than Ford's prejudice against that colour of his flames, that blue that was almost green, sees those nightmares that haunted him and how easily they could be truth -)

Ford comes to with a splitting headache, surrounded by discharge tracks and shorted-out equipment.

He tells himself he doesn't remember what happened.

He never tries to meditate with lightning again.

*

His first night in the cells of the underground bending ring, Stan is surprised when he finds the single candle left for him. It's obviously a deliberate gesture, a flame too weak for him to manage anything more with it than he could using his own flames. (He can think of plenty of things he could manage with this candle; just not many that would be worth the punishments he'd earn.)

Meditating with an outside flame feels strange, open and impersonal. But Stan knows that if he doesn't use the candle, if he shows he doesn't need it, they'll take it away. The discomfort is more than worth it for the relief of feeling a flame that isn't his, isn't an opponent's (isn't an enemy's).

Between the candle to meditate with and the people to use his sea-flames on, this period - trapped within an underground fighting ring, sneaking around disobeying his captor, never admitting to the fear that any moment the one thing that could be used to break him might be found - is in some ways the most comfortable Stan has ever been.

He buries that knowledge deeper than the years-old fear that his father had only been waiting for an excuse to throw him away, too deep for anything like poisonous gratitude to sprout from it.

*

Ford's meditations to reach Bill are nothing like the meditations required for his inner fire - sat cross-legged instead of kneeling, fingers pressed to thumbs instead of hands flat, eyes closed instead of staring into flames. Bill tries to tell him that he doesn't need to meditate on his flames _as well as_ to speak to Bill, tries to convince him to abandon his fire meditation.

Ford tells himself it's because Bill is not human, not a bender, that he simply doesn't understand what Ford needs. (Down under the surface of his mind, he asks himself whether he really believes that Bill has never inspired another firebender before.)

In the solitude of his own house away from the town, Ford finally starts meditating with a candle. It's strange, at first, to use an outside flame - but when his hands are not supporting the flame they can instead hold the glass flames to catch the light, and he watches the candleflame dancing through the glass and feels the frozen echo of his twin's chi.

The light in the glass flames dazzles him, leaves him with tears dripping down his face. (He isn't crying - why would he cry?) He feels anchored, feels a clarity of mind that he is embarrassed to admit his conversations with Bill never bring him.

He understands far too late that that is exactly why Bill wished him to stop meditating to control his inner fire.

*

Stan sits in the car that he thinks he'll keep, huddled around a broken lighter, his own flames dancing where the lighter's flame would if it still had fuel or a working flint. Sometimes he thinks about trying to hide his element - his eyes could pass for brown, and he's picked up some interesting tricks and skills - but hiding his flames would mean hiding his sea-flames, his healing flames, and even after the danger he's been in from having them he can't bring himself to do that. Not when he still remembers how cold and threatening his own fire felt without them.

He feels their inner fires approaching before he can see them, and it reminds him how easily any attempt to hide his own would be ruined - firebenders can sense their own kind, the same way they sense any other flames.

His intuition breathes warnings that he listens to, that send him slipping out of the car (it might even be _his_ car, repayment for attempted murder), and he offers a smile, friendly and so much less open than it looks.

Their smiles are not pretending to be friendly.

"Bad idea, trying not to give Mr. Rico what he wants," says one, and flames spark into being around the other's fingers that are the brilliant cold blue of a welding torch - cutting flames, part of Stanley's mind categorises them as, while the rest of him is frozen listening to his eleven-year-old twin's voice saying, _"Blue flames are a mark of dangerous sociopathy -"_

Blue, not turquoise, they're not _his_ flames, and the shock of his brother being proven _wrong_ (and _not_ wrong, both at the same time) slows his reactions enough that they catch him. "You could make this easy for everyone," he's told.

He doesn't.

He's off-balance from his meditation being disturbed, from seeing those blue flames and understanding what they mean, from facing more of Rico's hired goons when he'd thought he'd finally escaped them all - He's tired, and hungry, and alone against two people who don't seem particularly motivated to keep him alive -

He wins. (He survives and escapes and what _else_ could winning _be?)_ Laughing wild and frantic as he drives away, trying to ignore the pain long enough to put one more mile between him and them, come on, he can do it -

He almost passes out, (almost) runs off the road.

He never does meditate that night. 

He's too busy healing himself.

*

His first time seeing his twin in more than ten years (his brother's throat trapped in Rico's collar/standing helpless as Bill holds him on a stone chain), and later he'll be surprised that there wasn't an urge to just kneel there, hand in hand, and try to meditate away the fear and pain (how did Rico find you/how did Bill find you) he sees in his brother's eyes.

Of course, that might have been because of the circumstances.

*

At the motel, neither of them tries to meditate before falling into their beds.

The sunrise wakes them both, like always, and Stan grumbles into his pillow as Ford silently (fruitlessly) demands that the world immediately provide him with coffee. Stan makes it to the facilities first, coming back dripping but not noticably less scruffy to find his brother almost awake enough to take his own turn. Ford holds out the orange flame that means _breakfast?_

"Trust me, bro, you wouldn't wanna eat here. Any luck, there'll be a diner nearby with something good enough." Ford pulls a disgruntled face, but nods in understanding.

He takes long enough to make Stan antsy, uncomfortable with his brother out of his sight _(how sure are you that Rico's men didn't follow, didn't find you both, how sure are you you haven't lost him again)_ \- and then returns scrubbing his hands over his face, burning away the shadow of a beard as Stan covers his face with a hand and laughs helplessly. (Of _course_ neither of them have razors - why would they?)

They are drinking terrible diner coffee and eating terrible diner food when Stan asks, "So, d'you think we should maybe take a break for meditating before we head off to wherever?"

The question has Ford reaching for his glass flames without thought, only to falter when he touches them. That echo of his twin's chi is still there, as strong as it was yesterday, last week, last month - but now Stan is sat before him, Stan's chi lingers on his leg where he was healed.

In all the years that Ford clung to the glass his brother left him, it never occured to him that Stan's chi - that _Stan_ \- might _change._

"What, got a candle in there?" Stan teases, and Ford wants to deflect, wants to tell him it's not important -

The words don't come out.

He makes a dismissive gesture, a dismissive noise, but the _words_ don't come out, throat closing under an invisible hand (invisible collar?), and he's suddenly realising that he hasn't actually spoken at all today, hadn't spoken last night, hasn't spoken since his brother called him back from the dark he fell into when he - 

"Ford?" Stan is worried, concerned, gold-brown eyes watching him seeing him - how does it feel so different from Bill's yellow stare when hindsight shows Ford that Bill spent so much time trying to seem like Stan? "Ford, you okay?"

Ford meets his twin's eyes, gold-brown to gold-brown, and gives him the not-exactly-shrug that has always meant _Not now/Not here/Later_.

*

They're knelt facing each other, and their fingers on two of their hands slot together as easily as they always did, and Ford reaches up with his free hand and pulls out the glass flames Stan left for him and Stan feels like he's been punched in his gut. (He'd told himself that he'd forgotten leaving that sculpture for Ford, that it was so meaningless that _of course_ he hadn't thought about it in years.)

Stan lifts his hand (it's not shaking) and pulls out his own glass flames. They aren't identical, the two sculptures don't fit together - they were never meant to be brought together like this, they were made because Stan thought they never _would_ be.

Ford's eyes are wet behind his glasses. Stan's eyes sting and burn, and there must be smoke somewhere because there's no reason for him to be crying. There's no reason for either of them to be crying, knelt together seeing the proof that their twin missed them.

The glass flames go safely to the side, their fingers interlink, their chi - doesn't mesh. Not perfectly, the fire dancing above their hands is almost fighting, two separate sources instead of the merged blaze that it's been since their first stumbling attempts at meditating together. Ford is pushing his problems to the fore, expecting to work through them first (even though he's not sure he wants to pull out his own trauma when he could get some distance from it and reassure himself in yet another way that his brother is really here with him), but Stan is doing the same instead of giving way.

Ford looks from their flickering flames to his twin's eyes, helpless, stuck without the words to ask what's wrong, but before he can try to find them Stan squeezes his hands and forces out, "D'ya think we could maybe - do mine first for once?"

_For once_ and Ford wants to protest the implied inequality, _for once_ and Ford tries to think of another time they worked through Stanley's problems before his (there must have been one, surely? ...there must have been _one?), for once_ and suddenly Ford finds his self-focus faltering and giving way, his orange-yellow flames carrying his brother's green instead of attempting to overpower them.

It's new. It's new and it shouldn't be, it's new and if either of them had been asked they'd have said they wanted, needed, something old and familiar but this is so much better than that; this is what _should_ have been familiar when they were children, when they were teenagers, when they were meditating together every day and calling their flames more easily together than apart -

It's a new and fumbling effort at a balancing act they should have learned years ago, but their flames between them burn with the promise that it isn't too late for them to learn it now.

Stan's eyes sting. Ford's glasses fog.

They've been twins all their lives. 

Why is this - their first meditation together after ten years apart - the first time they truly feel like equals?


	5. Home Flames

Most people associate home with warmth, regardless of what their element is. To Lee and Ford, home is their mother's hugs, their twin's presence.

And then they pull the sparks from the hob (and get scolded because their Ma was trying to cook, and get praised because that was firebending!), and fire becomes home, too.

(Their father is not warmth. Their father is gruff words and hard stares and a constant silent _I'm not impressed._ Their father is not home.)

For Lee, home is having a place (and he accepts without thinking to question it that that place is being second-place to his twin). Ford has less sense of home, too aware of the sneers and whispers of "Freak!", too aware of his father's distaste for him; he only feels at home when he stares into their mingled flames during their shared meditations, when Lee shapes his flames to show Ford more possibilities than being trapped here all his life, when Lee's blue-green flames slide over his cuts and bruises and steal the pain away from them. Home for both of them is training on the beach more than staying in their shared room, home is _I'm here with you, I've got your back, we can do this!_

(They explore the caves marked 'DANGER! DO NOT ENTER', Lee's punch setting fire to the planks blocking the way, and when they find the wrecked ship Ford almost regrets being a firebender because a _normal_ person could fix this boat, could sail away on it to somewhere they wouldn't be seen as a freak - but Lee gives a wild yell of "Firewood!" that makes him laugh, and they have a private bonfire there in the cave.) (Lee sees the ship and thinks it's cool, but then he sees how Ford looks at it, and nothing cool would hurt his brother like that.)

Home is Lee's blue fire, and home is Ford's lightning. Home is their flames dancing together over their hands because they can't reach the candles and Ma isn't there to sneak them one. Home is silent conversations in the night, made of flames instead of words.

And then Ford reads a book that tells him everything that means home to him is a lie. 

And then Stan finds that everything that means home to him can sputter and die like fire from wet wood, lost in choking clouds of smoke till you can't tell if the fire's still there underneath.

Stanley tries to cling to his home, Stanford tries to push him off, to pull away (and push and pull is waterbending, moon on waves, not firebending, so _of course_ it douses the flames of their connection instead of feeding them).

For both of them, home dies away piece by piece - language unused, meditations unshared, comfort refused.

Until Stanley's attempts to rekindle it ignite an explosion that destroys their family, instead.

*

Stanley sculpts himself a reminder of his lost home from the tiny remainders of it he can still touch. (For months, it's the only thing that keeps him warm, even his inner fire gone cool and unfamiliar.)

Stanford picks up the glass sculpture his twin left and feels home at his fingertips for the first time in years. (He has no idea what he's feeling.) (In more ways than one.)

*

Their - _His_ father speaks to Stanford more than he ever has before - if it can be called speaking; grunts and mutterings, repeating over and over that Stanley was a parasite, that now that he's been removed Stanford has no excuse to do badly. Their - _His_ mother tells Stanford that he's smart, he's too bright to be wasted in this dead-end town.

That he doesn't need to be scared of his brother any more, and Stanford never does understand why she would ever think he _was._

Stanford tries to cling to his parents' words, tries to fill the empty space inside him with them.

(Their bedroom is too small without Stanley making him pick up his books and tidy his desk. Their bedroom is too quiet without Stanley's snoring or tuneless singing. Their bedroom is too dark without Stanley's flames answering when Stanford reaches for them. Their bedroom is too empty without Stanley's personality filling it full to bursting.)

(Their unshared bedroom is not Stanford's home.)

*

Stan's already ditched the car he stole - firebenders _can_ drive things with internal combustion engines, who'd'a guessed it, but after years of being told that he couldn't be trusted near them he's happier on his own two feet - and he's looking for somewhere out of the rain, because it may not be raining _yet_ but he knows better than to trust his luck now.

The space under the bridge is just large enough for him to fit in, a rock-filled little hollow that he's pretty sure some earthbender is responsible for - but no one shows up to claim it, so he pushes out a burst of fire to warm the rocks up and slumps dizzily into it as his body reminds him the energy for his inner fire has to come from more than his emotions.

It's not cold, with the rocks reflecting back the heat he shoved into them. It's not quiet, with the constant traffic over the bridge and the sounds from the city. It's not the worst place he's been since he was kicked out.

But it's hard, and it's lonely, and it's unsafe.

(He stays there long enough to think of it as 'his', but. The hollow under the bridge is not Stanley's home.)

*

Stan's pretty sure Jimmy picked him up because he thought a firebender in the gang would be useful, and he thinks he should be grateful - it means _someone_ thinks he's worth having around (even if his family doesn't) (even if _Ford_ doesn't). Doesn't stop the fire in his chest from getting colder, sinking lower and dragging his health down with it. He _should_ be grateful, but he doesn't think he is, because every time he says something he wants his twin's voice answering him and every time he meditates he wants his twin's flames mixing with his, and every time he remembers that his twin is never going to be there again all he feels is cold.

He thinks the kid is his twin. Stan is half-asleep ( ~~halfway to dead~~ ) and he fools himself that the kid is his twin, and he lets himself have this final dream of home and healing and **home**.

And then he wakes up.

_We're your family, we're your home,_ the gang try to convince Stan, and he _wants_ to believe it, but the way there's always someone around feels more like guards than brothers, the motel rooms and back-alley pitstops are cages instead of safehouses.

(Jimmy's biker gang try, some of them are sometimes even sincere about it... but the gang is not Stanley's home.)

*

The other students think Stanford has a good-luck charm or (reminder of home) something similar in his pocket, that he reaches to it for strength or comfort.

The other students shorten his name to 'Stan', and think he's weirdly formal for wanting to hear the whole of it (not even his roommate Fiddleford knows why, that every time he hears 'Stan' he looks instinctively to see if they're calling for his twin) (and Ford never recognises the cold sinking when they aren't as disappointment).

The first time he hears whispers about his extra fingers, Ford keeps his head bent and waits. 

Stan doesn't (isn't _there_ to) protest them.

Ford grips the glass flames in his pocket and tells himself it doesn't hurt.

Ford starts awake that night from something that (he tells himself) wasn't a nightmare, and flicks out a red-gold flame.

Fiddleford doesn't stir.

His dormroom isn't empty, but somehow it feels just as lonely as his room back in New Jersey did.

(Backupsmore is not Ford's home.)

*

When Stan finds the candle left for him in his cell, he makes a crack about a housewarming present, not knowing if there's a guard close enough to hear him.

Stan's first win, the wildhungry crowd roar for him and the exhilaration is sharp and terrifying - he could love this, he could lose himself in this, he could let this break him down to a wild animal (and what would that do to his sea-flames, would they die out - a spark of spite tells him to try it, destroy the part of him Rico wants him for and laugh in the man's face when he finds out).

Stan picks the lock of his cell that night, barely waits long enough for the guards to have left before he's sneaking from his own cell and looking for the man he beat down, beat up, bruised and burned and _beat_ in every sense of the word.

He doesn't find him. He finds a sharp-eyed vicious kid who's younger than he was when he was thrown out, younger than the kid who (he thought was Ford) brought his sea-flames back, young enough that no one can be fooling themselves that this _isn't_ a kid (he remembers that crowd and knows no one here cares) - 

Stan's fingers drift over the glass flames that some miracle has kept hidden from Rico's people, and he picks the lock and slips into the kid's room without a second thought.

The kid is suspicious, has already learned to be dangerous, and has injuries that leave Stan sick to his stomach. (The kid's probably not going to make it another month, and both of them know it.) Stan wants to leave the door unlocked when he slides back out, but he's learned caution enough to hide that he was there.

(He manages to get the kid out two weeks later. He tells himself they must have made it, must have escaped, and he's pretty sure it's even true, because Rico never boasts to him of recapturing them.

There's another kid in the cell the next day, and Rico _orders_ him to heal them. Something burns hot and ugly in Stan's gut - Rico's telling him rescuing that one kid was pointless and Rico's trying to _use_ Stan rescuing that one kid as leverege to teach Stan to obey him - and Stan spits at Rico's face again. It gets him a busted jaw and busted ribs and a hot tight curl of satisfaction that _almost_ drowns out the pain of knowing he'll never manage to repeat the rescue of that first kid.)

Stan fights and Stan heals and Stan learns what he can't heal. Stan finds a rhythm to his life and sets to memorising the beats, not letting on that he knows there's a deadline he can't see coming up. (It still takes him by surprise, in the end.)

It's ugly and it's temporary and Stan never lets himself think that this might be the rest of his life.

(The cell and the fighting pit are not Stanley's home.)

*

Stanford breathes in deeply, facing the framework of his house, smiling and happy (and still, _still_ so lonely), testing whether he can taste the weirdness in the air.

He smells sawdust and forest and pine and (he tells himself) potential. (He doesn't smell toffee peanuts, he doesn't smell his brother's smoke, he doesn't smell that leather jacket or cheap aftershave or -) (He doesn't realise he's trying to.)

The townspeople greet him easily enough (and he wishes there was someone ( ~~Stan~~ ) there to answer them for him, smile and charm and blaze the trail for him to follow). The forest is full of weirdness to overflowing, gnomes rummaging through his trash and plaidypi waddling near his porch and fairies dancing on the wire-fence he erects to (keep people out) (keep himself safe) mark the boundaries of the plot of land he's bought. (Stan would have burned a line to mark them, made it a race between them) (Stan was a sociopath, Stan was evil, _~~why does Ford still miss him?~~ )_ (Ford researches firebender rituals to mark boundaries, keeps making note of the ones that need more than one firebender (but not more than two) and then throwing those notes aside in frustration.)

Ford calls _himself_ Stan, tells himself it's because he's grown used to it from years at Backupsmore (tells himself he doesn't still look for someone else when he hears the name) (tells himself it doesn't feel like borrowing ~~Stan's~~ someone else's worn-in jacket, that pinches too tight when his arms move _this_ way and hangs too loose when he holds his shoulders like _that_ ).

Ford expects to be happy.

Ford _is_ happy, Gravity Falls is an endless parade of discoveries and wonders and adventures, too many for one journal to hold, too many for one _house_ to hold, he's happy he's so happy he's contented he's enjoying himself _why does he feel that something's missing?_

Ford's house fills with specimens, fills with notes, and Ford _doesn't understand_ why it still feels _empty._

Ford loves his work, and Ford _doesn't understand_ why it isn't _enough._

Ford cannot think of a single thing more he could want in his life ( ~~unless you consult the crossed-out lines in his journals~~ ). Ford tells himself he wants acclaim, he wants renown ( ~~Ford wants his brother jumping onto the stage to grab him in a bearhug and tell everyone "Yeah, this is my brother!"~~ ), and he goes desperately seeking something, anything, that could earn him that and finally fill this hole he doesn't understand.

(Ford loves Gravity Falls in a way he's never loved any other place... but his house on its outskirts is not Ford's home.)

*

Ten years spent apart and neither of them finds a place to be their home.

Home is a (pair of) glass sculpture(s). Home is bittersweet and painful memories. (Home is _I'm here with you, I've got your back, we can do this!_ even years after they both think it's stopped being anything of the kind.)

Stan doesn't admit it, Ford doesn't understand it, but deep in their hearts neither of them expects to find their home again. 

*

Home is gold-brown eyes filled with fear and horror.

Home is gold-white lightning. Home is blue-green flames.

Home is five fingers slotting between six, home is a language of flames, home is a meditation that's never felt so evenly balanced as it does this time together.

*

They're moving on - Stan drives, Ford navigates. They argue over where to go, and Ford doesn't need to speak to hold his side, not when he's arguing with _Stan,_ the only other person in the world who understands the sparks/flashes/flickers he's speaking. (Ford uses the words he found/made while he was alone, and Stan double-checks the (rare) meaning he can't grasp from context. Stan uses his own new words back, and Ford snaps his fingers to ask when he needs them explained, but they make sense because of course they do and it'll take more than ten years apart for their shared language to become unfamiliar to them both.)

Ford wins the argument and they head to his house - _yes_ he was kidnapped from it, but he can put wards at the boundaries now he knows he'll need them, now he knows _they'll_ need them. Stan doesn't have a house; Stan has a car with a trunk that doesn't lock, and an untrustworthy web of favours owed.

Ocean flames may not sound appropriate for the centre of a landlocked forest, two opposites that are both wrong, but Ford feels confident that Gravity Falls will accept a fire-healer as easily as every other piece of weirdness that enters its borders (as easily as it has a six-fingered lightningbender).

There are conversations that still need to be had, bitterness and misunderstandings cleared, apologies made and maybe even accepted. There's healing still to be done, of their relationship and their bodies.

And they both know it'll be worth it, because for the first time in more than a decade...

They're headed home.

**Author's Note:**

> Guess where I stopped trying/started trying too hard.


End file.
